265 replies to this topic

[BloodyHell83]

Without having read all the comments in this thread so far let me congratulate you on taking the next big step.

Just a few suggestions on what I'll be looking forward to :

- add more maps and variations of them (perhaps even add destructible debris / barriers that block certain parts of the maps for alternate routes)
- add more game modes (not just simple base capture)
- add more fine-tuneable graphics configuration settings (HDR, AO, draw distance, scene complexity, clutter meshes, tree billboards, poly reduction, particle fx, etc.)
- keep working on further optimizing the "low" system spec settings (e.g. better optimized LOD meshes to reduce polycount)
- consider adding regional servers for EU (and other regions like AUS) too, not just the US (an average of 120ms ping is ok-ish but there's still lag, rubberbanding and aim-fire-lag)

I'm sure though that most of that is planned anyways over the course of the next months.
Looking forward to the fresh start actually.

[Blark]

Hello Russ,

Although I'm not very eloquent in English, I'll try to tell you why I don't think we're quite ready for open beta yet (on the off chance that you might actually see this):

I started my career in a little software company, and for a while, things were great.. we were earning a load of money and our customers were happy.
But when problems started to arise, our chief executive started to make some really bad decisions for all the right reasons.. mainly release stuff that wasn't quite ready, which led to catastrophe and the closing of our little company.
Now please don't get me wrong, I don't think that the OB on Monday will lead to catastrophe, I just wrote it to make it clear that I have some very strong feelings regarding such things,and because I want you guys to succeed.

Now I don't think that much is missing for OB, unlike others I don't seen game-play issues like missing knockdowns or unclear state of dhs as big problems, I'm more concerned about the experience new players will have once they join on Monday and their motivation to go on playing:

- Weapon stats in client

I know it's sad, but the average player does not come to the forums and does not search information actively, those players wont know what the different weapon types do, how much heat they produce, how much dmg they do etc.
It's not that big of a problem because I imagine this can be implemented very quickly, and ways to better comunicate would alliviete such shortcomings greatly, which leads me to the second point:

- Missing communication features

Some kind of global chat would help new players greatly, because right now there is no way to really communicate using the client, no way to ask questions... the in-game chat is not the right place to ask anything, because players are focused on the game.

- Matchmaking

Before ob some basic kind of matchmaking based on group size and perhaps even a rudimentary skill rating should be implemented, because being slaughtered over and over again will turn a lot of new players away.
Every new player should have the opportunity to learn at his own pace and be able to play against roughly equal strong opposition.
There are a lot of groups out there who are willing to help, and accommodate new players and help them, but truth be told, we all know that most average players will not search in the forums, and will not join groups.
And we need those players if we want to have a healthy and large f2p community which supports the game.

- Starter Mech / Trail Mechs

Perhaps this is only my opinion, but I imagine a lot of folks will be turned away by having to play trial mechs and not have any way to customize anything in the beginning.
I'm well aware that there has to be a grind and that you have to make money, but I wonder if thats the best approach, seeing as it excludes new players from the biggest feature of mwo (customization) at the start.
I have no optimal solution in mind, but I liked the approach of "Warhammer wrath of heros" f2p:

You start out with one hero, which is crappy and almost none plays it much, but the player gets the feeling that he already has something.
There are also 4 free heros every week (i.e. trial mechs).
Now the difference to mwo is that players can customize the trial chars, which crates motivation, and players seem more then happy to buy those chars with real money (the grind in said game is epic compared to mwo btw).


disclaimer: this post of course only reflects my opinion.. and also sorry for my mediocre english

[Leeroy Mechkins]

Much chicken has been prepared for Monday.

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[costi]

Rooky2001, on 27 October 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

Hoho...

You want to start OB (in my eyes it is a release, using real money without Reset after OB is Release. thats reality) on monday...

1. You want to start a MMO without a Ingame Chat? Really? No Communications in mechlab for lone wolfs? Fire ur PR-department!

2. Can u kill all bugs and glitches till monday? I think no. Its ridiculous to start with them.

3. Fix the Mech Customization. saving changes on changing a tab is totally stupid. changing upgrades without seeing the changes is not really user friendly and wastes the hard c-bills.

4. WHERE are the Weapon Stats? Heat, Damage, Rof? Ever new lone wolf will quit this game in OB after a hour...

I have no problem with OB, because me teammates are on Teamspeak and i can life with a really good bugfixing in the next two weeks and i know the mechanics in the game, but ever newcomer will be pissed when he waste his first money in the "clever desinged" mach lab *hust*, needs to read the forum for stats and view youtube videos as manual...

I never saw a release like this, sorry. And its a release.

This. 1 and 4 alone are such fundamental elements of the UI that not having them looks simply dumb.

[Banto]

This is funny... or not... I don't know. Cause I can't even tell if this should be serious or not.

Don't get me wrong. I like the game. I like it, how the Dev's are working with the community.

But I don't like how this game should go OB at its current state.

It was said, thousands of Beta-Testers aren't playing, because of the wipes.
I can't speak for everyone, but I for myself didn't played in a few month cause there was nothing new and exciting. It got boring.
You want to go OB, where people can (and you hope for) spend money on things, yet you couldn't manage to indroduce patches with major changes that weren't totally buggy and ****** up? How do you think this is going in the future?

Yes, it is beta and maybe if this game is getting well and many people spend money on it, you can get a bigger QA but what if not?
I do think, many people will read "Hey, open beta for MW:O is out!", download it, play it and before or after read about the features and then get the impression that much of the content still lacks. Key content. Like CoummunityWarfare, which in my opinion is the one big thing that would make MW:O noticable in the F2P market. Like chat options and lobbys (no big chat option for a online multiplayer game, really?). Like easy to use and understand interfaces (The former MechLab would have been fine if there had been features like rightcklicking stuff to build it into the selected body part, a button to strip a Mech of its weapons and such little things, not to mention the in-game description for what the hell all of this stuff do, what wouldn' be that much of work I would guess).

I don't think there will be much people that say "Okay, it gets boring pretty quickly, due to lack of content and the "MechLab" just literally stole my money cause I wanted to customize my Mech and most of the stuff I bought doesn't even work in game but hey, it is Open Beta... BETA! I will give it its time and... hey, what is that! Another Patch that ****** up some existing mechanics and introduced new stuff that doesn't work?! It is okay, it is BETA! Take more of my money!".

No, I think these people are already here. Most other people will see "Hey, this game is called Beta, but I already can invest real money in it so this has to be nearly done and... wtf is this ****? I'm outta here, playing something else in the huge market of F2P."

I totally understand that you guys are forced in one way or the other to go open beta and get some money. And I really hope this is going to thrive and that I'm all wrong. I would be happy for you guys.
But if this should work, you really, really have to kick your work and speed and quality of new (and fast added) content up to the next level. Cause I don't believe there are many people and player out there who are as patient as most of your current founders and beta-testers... and even we are getting easily mad and impatient, even though we love this game and the whole work you guys have delivered so far.

I know, this is going to happen on monday, if we people are agree or not. I just wanted to express my concerns and really hope, someone is going to rub my nose in this post and call me a doomsayer, when this game is still good and well in a year or so.

At least, we don't have to hope for a patch on next tuesday and get dissapointed, I guess.

Good luck to PGI, IPG and all of us.

Edited by Banto, 27 October 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[Procellus]

Really, Banto? You're going to complain about delays in patches and patches screwing things up in the same post?

[Leeroy Mechkins]

I used to CB, then I took an OB to the knee

[Marvyra]

Not sure how long this game has been in Closed Beta but, coming from other MMORPGs, they never had a long testing period for closed betas, usually the open beta is longer. But people, it's still BETA even if it goes open. Opening the game up for more people will allow PGI to do even more stress testing and get more performance data from different angles. More feedback. That's a good thing, right?

So, PGI, if you feel that the game is Open Beta ready, then go for it!

[Banto]

Procellus, on 27 October 2012 - 06:18 AM, said:

Really, Banto? You're going to complain about delays in patches and patches screwing things up in the same post?

Really, I do. I wouldn't, if delaying those patches would lead to nearly bugfree content. But did this happen? I don't think so.
Maybe it was delayed for an other reason and that stuff may work right now or it was completly erased from the last patch, who knows, cause the Dev's didn't tell, why they delayed it. But you can't deny the broken DHS and some other stuff which had to be issued.

If there is broken stuff in it that doesn't completly **** up the client, release it already, tell the community you know it is ****** up and let them search the other bugs on other stuff. We have to do it anyways. And it is okay.
But don't promise great patches to be like christmas, then delay it without telling what is wrong and then releas a still buggy patch a few days later. I don't think this set a good mood within the CB-Community and surely will not once OB goes live.

Sorry for my bad english. i hope I could make myself clear.

Edited by Banto, 27 October 2012 - 06:30 AM.

[Kyran]

It's always a major step to move from closed to open beta for any project, and perhaps I'm one of the dissenters on this forum by being glad that the developers have decided to take this step.

Yes, there are features missing from the current project, but there was a real risk of MWO going the same way as some other F2P projects that remained in beta for years. I sincerely hope that moving to open beta and increasing the size of the server population (and thus the volume of feedback) will re-energize both long time testers and the developers.

The increased revenue can only serve to increase the speed and quality of content updates for the game.

Even though I've only been a CB tester for a few weeks, I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to contribute in some small way to the development of this game before it was revealed to the general public.

And yes, I'm looking forward to finally owning an Atlas for more than four days before it gets wiped (Even if this means a few weeks of Trial Mech grinding)

[TheBlueberry]

Taking the cork out of the bottle? Remember, good wine gets better with age..or does it? It is a misconception that wine must be aged to be better. Most wine is consumed young. Wine also peaks, just before the tannins start to ruin its flavor. I think we have peaked..Lets hope that future vintages will only get better. I think we have a good vineyard though. Lets hope the wine improves..Owning only a small vignette with in the vineyard we depend on economies of scale.

I hope some sort of open market place will devolope to sell our extra bottles of wine, bottles, corks, barrels and such..

Edited by TheBlueberry, 27 October 2012 - 07:00 AM.

[Barsov]

Bring back clollisions. OMG

[TigrisMorte]

Garth Erlam, on 26 October 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

... You guys are absolutely the most loyal community in all of gaming, intense! But far and away the most loyal. ...
Russ Bullock
President
Piranha Games Inc.

You sir are a blind fan boi.

[Roni]

I reckon they removed collisions to dumb it down for new players when it goes OB. I agree alot of founders have stopped playing due to "fatigue" and am one of those who are happy it's going to be the final wipe, every 8 hour night session I play I experience at last 5 or more client crashes, and one out of every 5-10 games it goes to 4fps and becomes a frozen mess. The core mechanics are fun, but seems short sighted to expose to the public a unfinished but more importantly very unstable game. Still my most fun game at the moment though, I guess that's what PGI is banking on.

[Treckin]

I truely think this can be a whirled class title, however at the moment its the glitchiest beta game im testing (Planetside 2, Smite, MWO).

For example, it appears to be possible to make a mech without enough heatsinks, save it, and then be unable to make games with that mech.
Another example is the armor bug, where you go slightly over tonnage without that showing in your armor or weight stat, and then the loadout tab fails to load your gear, as well as fails to tell you why...
A final example is the grouping feature - its all effed up, beyond description. Not meeting basic usage requirements?
Many others - FPS bug, DHS, flamers, machine guns, the HUGE green arrows obscuring 90% of my map which I have to deactivate each time I open the map, which when deactivated also no longer show names - and never showed mech type or life%...

How about the economy, which as of the new changes, essentially force you to buy a mech with your pricing structure (which places certain mechs just out of reach - 25 MC over the $6.95 package ammout for many variants. Feels like a money grab TBH. Then you open the open beta floodgates?

You should focus on making skins and other not P2W content. Leage of Legends has proven that people will spend more moneny on skin content and like it then less money on P2W content and hate it.

Anyway, love this game, keep up the good work.

Edited by Treckin, 27 October 2012 - 07:43 AM.

[RAGE Quarter]

In the immortal words of Judge Judy, "Don't pee on my shoe and tell me its raining!"

Considering the current state of the game, rolling out open beta at this point can only be all about generating cash flow. The nerfing of the economy in the last patch is all about generating cash flow.

I truly want this Mech title to be a success, but I fear that the short sided push to generate cash will alienate many would be long term mech fans. You only get one shot at a first impression.

[Hardwyre]

I like this new game production model. F2P FTW.

[Kinsume]

Its kinda sketchy that there are mechs that are MC only, but since its only hardpoints that are different and looks, I guess that is alright. So long as the cash shop doesn't go beyond that and start making MC only mechs and weapons the game's free to play model should work. Personally I believe the game has alot of potential, unlike other fps games there is a huge core fan base that follows mech warrior series. Frankly there hasn't been a good mech fps game out for quite some time and people have been getting antsy.

All in all, so long as OB actually starts on the 29th, this is good. Assuming of course they actually do it this time....

[Chopsaw]

I scroll and I scroll looking for any responses from a staff member and I don't find one. This is what I've been finding over and over again....anemic initial communication that draws a bunch of questions and then silence. What's the point of trying? There are so many valid concerns/questions repeated over and over, but no response to them. *sigh* THIS is what burns me out....searching the forums for answers and not finding them....NOT server resets.

[Kinsume]

Chopsaw, on 27 October 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

I scroll and I scroll looking for any responses from a staff member and I don't find one. This is what I've been finding over and over again....anemic initial communication that draws a bunch of questions and then silence. What's the point of trying? There are so many valid concerns/questions repeated over and over, but no response to them. *sigh* THIS is what burns me out....searching the forums for answers and not finding them....NOT server resets.

The staff have better things to do then scroll through the hundreds to thousands of posts that get spammed on here daily, like work, not to mention the sea of trolls and such. They aren't obligated nor required to answer every question someone has, you'll find out what is going to happen with it when its released or if they make an official release.